Spinner's End
by damalur
Summary: That night, Belle lit a candle. AU, Belle/Rumpelstiltskin.


Notes: Title courtesy of J.K. Rowling, beta courtesy of Odyle. This story is a gift for midget-with-glasses, who requested the making of Christmas dinner for the Rumbelle Secret Santa.

* * *

He had walked for a long time.

His leg had numbed to the point that it was almost completely insensate, which did nothing for his sense of balance; now he tripped over roots and stones not only because the damned knee kept giving out, but because he couldn't feel much of his toes or foot at all. A smart man would have turned back long ago; a better man would have laid down in the road and waited to die. Rumpelstiltskin was neither of these things. He was craven, and weak, but stubborn, and so he kept walking.

When he'd started, the road had been broad and well-kempt, but within days it had narrowed as it lead first into the mountains and then out of them. The passage had been narrow, at times barely wide enough for even a slight man to fit through, but the summer sun had kept the snows from blocking his path. After its descent the road had lead him through meadows; that had been the best time, when there was food enough to find if only a traveller was willing to look. He could have settled in the mountains, where no one would dare look for him, or in the meadows, where the grass smelled of sweetness and green things, but he did not.

Through the meadows ran a burbling brook that had flirted with and at times overtook the road as they both ran out of the mountains; after days the brook widened to a river. The road followed the river and Rumpelstiltskin followed the road, and when the meadows began to give themselves over to broader and broader groves of trees he followed the road still.

For a time he had fish and fresh water, but then the groves yielded to woodland and the river curved away, following the call of the sea, while the road stayed true and straight, and then he went back to gathering what roots and mushrooms he recognized as safe and, when he didn't feel threatened, trapping rabbits to roast over the fire. After the first frost had settled over the ground and the rabbits seemed loath to leave their dens, he ate the dried fruit, jerky, and hardtack from his supplies—but even a bag as deep as his would run out eventually. The dried apples became fewer and farther between, the hardtack more common.

And now the trees had shed the last of their leaves and the only bit of color came from the evergreens; his leg was numb; each time he fell it took him that much longer to climb to his feet, right his cloak and haversack, and set off again. A better man would have laid down in the road and waited to die in penance, but sometimes worse men were forced to the same fate from despair.

It was dusk when he first saw the flicker of light through the dense overlay of the trees. He thought, at first, that it was a hallucination, brought on by wishful thinking and exhaustion; but although at times he had to look down and search for the path, swallowed as it occasionally was by the carpet of dead leaves or by the underbrush, the light stayed constant, and in fact brightened the nearer he drew. Twice he had to stop and fight for his breath, which hung, visible, in the cold air, but the light never wavered or vanished.

When he stepped into the clearing, just enough sunlight still filtered through the trees for him to recognize the dark shape before him as a cottage; the light belonged to a candle set in the window. He hadn't seen or spoken to another human being in weeks, and he knew the cottage was more likely to belong to a witch or another wicked sorcerer than any other kind of person, but here was where the road ended, and he had no strength to find another. He lurched forward, collapsed on the doorstep, extracted and raised one hand, and knocked.

The wait until the door open seemed endless, but it did open, and a woman with dark hair and blue blue eyes peered down at him with an expression of surprise.

"Oh!" she said. "Hello. What are you doing down there?"

Rumpelstiltskin passed out.

* * *

Belle didn't often receive visitors. By her last count, it had been two thousand, four hundred, and thirty-two days since someone had stumbled across her home, and this man seemed to have done exactly that—stumbled. He looked horrible; his hair was lank over his brow and his boots, although obviously of high quality, were worn thin through the soles. Well. She couldn't very well leave him there, not when he needed help.

The first thing she did was search him for weapons, but—subverting her expectations—he carried none, only a small knife no longer than her thumb. She took that from him and stored it behind _Cromwell's Book of Stews_, and then, after a moment of thought, took the bundle of sinews she suspected had been a trap and stowed that with the knife.

Next came the long job of hauling him inside. He wasn't a particularly large man, but he was heavy enough; Belle, fortunately, had years of practice at lugging firewood and grimoires and managed, with a bit of planning, to tug him over her doorstep and over to a blanket she spread in front of the fire. After that she stripped off his cloak, surcoat, bag, and boots and wiped his face free of the dirt and grime that had collected there. He had an interesting face, she thought; his nose changed direction at least three times. Even in his sleep he scowled.

She went back to the door and locked it, put away her ladder, and then collected reading material and settled beside the stranger on the hearth, close enough that she could watch his eyes roll beneath the lids but far enough that if he woke suddenly and grabbed for her she could leap for the dagger in the table drawer—or fling one of her candles at his face.

Belle finished three chapters of _The Wind in the Willows_ before her visitor stirred. He moaned first, rolling to his side; when he opened his eyes Belle saw that they were brown. He wet his lips and then said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Belle," she said. "Who are you?"

"Rumpelstiltskin," he answered. He was examining the inside of her cottage, but his gaze kept returning to her face; she didn't know what to think of that. "This is your home?"

"I do live here."

"You have...many books," he said, and Belle laughed.

"And still not enough. How are you feeling?"

He sat up and winced when he bent his knee; she watched as he flexed his foot and then, frowning, searched around until he found his boots and began to pull them on.

Belle closed her book in alarm. "What are you doing?"

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her through his shaggy hair. "What am I...I'm putting on my boots."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "You aren't going anywhere in your condition. Now lie back down." She risked setting a hand on his chest and pushed; he scowled again, much more fiercely than he did in his sleep, and resisted.

"There's no reason for me to take advantage of—"

"No," Belle said.

"Let me—"

"No," Belle said. "Stay here." When she was sure he would hold still, she pulled her hand away and went to the fire, where she was careful to twitch her skirts away from the hearth lest some ember leap out and light her on fire. There was a pot of soup bubbling merrily above the flames, and after she removed the lid the whole cottage was saturated with the smell of ham and lentils. She served up a bowl, set it beside Rumpelstiltskin, fetched a glass of water, and then handed him that, too.

"Eat," she said. "And drink that, you need fluids. When you're finished, I'll have a look at your leg."

"But—"

"Ah ah ah," Belle said. "Eat, I told you. You'll be taking advantage of my hospitality if you make me turn a wounded man away when he needs help. Go on," she added, and brandished a spoon at him. "I made it myself, it's really..."

He took a sip of the soup, swallowed, and made a face.

"Edible," she finished. "It's very edible."

"It tastes like soap," her visitor grumbled, but he took the spoon and within moments was scraping the bottom of the bowl. Belle fixed him seconds and then, without permission, began rolling back the leg of his trousers.

"You'll need a hot poultice," she said. "And some more soup, I think, and at least two nights of good rest. You can leave when you feel better."

"Oh can I, dear?" he said, and then abruptly looked horrified at himself—for the endearment, she supposed.

"Yes," she said. "More soup?"

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin spent most of the first day sleeping, on and off; but on the second day he had recovered enough to pace around the perimeter of Belle's cottage. She lived, as far as he could tell, alone, except for the goat and the chickens, who lived in a shed out back, and the cat, who disappeared at will. Her home was as snug a building as any he'd seen, in part because the interior was—save for the stone fireplace—lined entirely with bookcases; and those bookcases were filled, crammed, _overflowing_ with books. There were some he recognized—books about cooking and weaving, books about magic, books about tactics, books full of poetry and children's stories, books listing the genologies of kings and queens—and many, many more he didn't—books in dead languages, books about dragons, books with bright lurid covers or books set in lands that had never existed, not even in memory.

Belle read constantly. She read as she cooked (poorly) and as she mended her dresses (still more poorly) and as she made candles (with an amount of skill he wouldn't have expected, based on her cooking and sewing). She talked to the goat and to the chickens and to the cat, when it deigned to appear, and soon enough transferred her chatter to him as well. She knew something about everything and was fond of sharing stories about her childhood, although, he noted, not anything more recent; the years before she'd come to live in the cottage were a mystery. She was fonder still of questions, and these he answered as best he could, unless they were about himself, in which case he answered not at all.

On the morning of the third day he woke to find that the ache in his knee had settled to something manageable and that he no longer felt faint if he stood too quickly. Belle watched as he made a circuit of the room, from his pallet near the hearth to the corner with her worktable to the front door and then around the other side, behind the ladder leading to the loft and past the door leading out back and then again to the hearth. He was stiff, but well enough.

And then Belle said that he was of course free to leave, but, she suggested, he might pay her back for the soup by helping her ready the garden for winter.

"It's a wonder that something with such a good odor could taste so foul as your soup," he teased, although the aftermath of playfulness always left him stricken with guilt. She smiled at him, though, and that was worth all the guilt in the wide world, she was so lovely when her face lit up—

"Yes, I can see how much you hated it by how empty my pot is," she said, rapping the ladle against the empty bottom of the pot. "I could use the help, though, although if it's too much trouble I won't ask."

"No, no trouble at all," he said immediately. Judging by the self-satisfied glimmer of her grin, his easy acquiescence had been exactly her aim, but he didn't regret agreeing until his fourth day hauling compost from the heap behind the shed to cover her beds. In daylight the cottage itself transformed from a comforting dark bulk with warm windows to a tidy little home covered from base to roof in climbing rose brambles. The last of the blooms had already died, not to reveal itself again until spring, but he imagined that in the right season the cottage would look spectacular.

It would smell spectacular, too—better than goat manure, certainly.

"My leg hurts," he grumbled. "And this shit stinks to high heaven. What do you feed that creature?"

"Milk and ambrosia, and sit down if your leg hurts." Belle was wearing gloves that rose past her elbows and was currently engaged in a battle to keep the roses away from her windows. That the whole house hadn't disappeared in a knot of greenery and flowers was something of a wonder.

"I'm supposed to be helping you, not sitting on my arse," he shot back.

She gave him that look, the one he saw all too often, the one that never offended but only made him awed at their immediate familiarity. He hadn't once in his life felt so comfortable in the presence of another, not even his poor, lost son, for with Bae had come a barrage of concerns about parenting, war, clothes and books and food, ethics and play and whether he'd reminded the boy to brush his teeth. That was years ago, anyway.

And Belle's comaraderie would only ever be a fleeting comfort; he didn't fool himself into thinking that he would intrude on her happy, simple life for more than a few days. When all her rose beds were covered with compost and when the arbor had been repaired and after the delicate dahlia bulbs had been moved to warmer quarters and the dead brush had been cleared from between the roots of the old oak, he would leave and go—somewhere. Anywhere but _there_ or _here_.

"You're helping me by keeping me company," Belle said. "And you have to do as I say, don't you? I took in a stranger who might have—have stolen all my—"

"Books?"

"Books are valuable," she said. "You might have stolen my eggs, too, or—murdered me in my sleep—"

"There's a deed for which I don't have the stomach, dearie. You'd be more likely to murder me than I you."

She settled her hands on her hips, and only the pruning shears still held in one fist gave her figure any sort of menace. Well—the shears, and the ferocity in her eyes.

"Go inside and _sit_, Rumpelstilskin. I'll be along in a minute. No, no arguments, as a guest it's your responsibility to indulge your hostess. Go on."

Thoroughly scolded, he allowed her to shoo him inside, where he pulled off his scarf and gloves and sat, stretching his bad leg out towards the banked fire. He could hear the clatter of the pruning shears against the glass window panes—and wasn't that interesting, glass windows in a house that existed at the crossroads of nowhere. Simple enough for a sorcerer to enchant ice or stone or any number of materials into glass, but there was nothing overtly magical about his hostess. There was something about the cottage, though...

He was musing about the cat when his gaze fell on what at first appeared to be a mound of dirt; after a moment the mound moved, and he realized he was looking at a spider. The fellow was large and hairy and seemed to have too many legs, although it of course had the usual number for a creature of that sort. Rumpelstiltskin heaved himself to the feet and, holding onto the mantle with one hand for balance, lifted his foot to crush the nasty thing beneath his boot.

"Wait!" Belle said. "What are you doing?"

He blinked. "Killing a spider, dearie. What am I meant to be doing?"

"Stop that," she scolded, and managed to sweep him aside and back to his chair without once touching him. "That's Alfred, he lives in the rafters." She scooped the spider up with both hands and set it on the mantlepiece, where it sat, gathering its wits, before it came to its senses and scuttled up the wall. "See?" Belle said, and pointed.

Indeed, he did see; fine filaments of web were strung between the beams, and as he watched Alfred hurried up one and across another before disappearing over the loft where Belle slept.

"Lovely," Rumpelstiltskin said, dryer than a desert, but Belle gave him the look and started to work the canvas gloves off her arms.

"They are lovely," she said. "He's good company, too, and he keeps the cat entertained."

"And someday he'll make the cat a very nice meal. All right, don't look at me like that, the spider isn't to be harmed. Do you rescue pixies and serpents, too?"

"I don't rescue anyone," Belle said. "Now come here and chop these carrots. We're having stew tonight."

He went, and was amused to find that she had confiscated his paring knife to use on vegetables; but as he sectioned the carrots, he could only think that she was wrong.

* * *

When the garden was ready for winter, she pointed out that it was still a two-person job to make the shed's roof ship-shape before the heavy snowfalls came, and then Rumpelstiltskin decided she had to be taught how to properly patch her dresses "or else," he said, "you're going to run out of thread before you run out of holes." Then Belle asked—politely, as she always did—how much he knew about woodwork, and when he admitted he knew enough to pass muster, asked him to build her a new bookcase. "The shelves on the one upstairs sag," she said. "I have some planks, if you wouldn't mind...?"

After that she showed him the best plants in the area to eat, and the best ones to use for healing, and made him copy a few pages from a book on herbology that cross-referenced regions and species. He returned the favor by teaching her to bake bread, a skill she didn't master until the snow drifts threatened to overtake the windows. "You have to stay at least another week," Belle said, as they shared a loaf of bread and a little pot of butter. She was pleased with how the bread had come out; the crust was thick and flaky, but not too tough. "I'm planning for a holiday."

"Holiday?" Rumpelstiltskin said. He was buttering his slice of bread on both sides, ridiculous man.

"Christmas," Belle said. "We're having a special dinner. I'll make bread."

"Haven't heard of it," he said, licking the back of his knife before setting it down. "Did the hens lay today or yesterday?"

"Today. I gathered the eggs this morning. It's a feastday," Belle explained. "From another land far away. We'll have to have a tree, and some holly, and I wonder if I have corn in the cellar..." She started idly tearing her bread into bits as she thought; the cat hopped up on the table and trilled a question, so Belle offered her one of the bits of bread.

Rumpelstiltskin licked the front of his butter knife. It was thoroughly distracting.

"And this is a tradition, where you're from?"

"Oh no," she said. "But I like holidays, you know. Navratri, Tomb Sweeping Day, Beltane, Lithe, Unification Day...last year we had Larentalia instead of Christmas, but I have to admit I enjoy Christmas more. I'm not...fond of sacrifices."

"All of these festivals," Rumpelstiltskin said, now frowning at the butter that had transferred from the bread to his fingers. "You read about them in your books, dearie?"

"It does make the time pass. It would be easy to lose track of what day it is, and then what year...I don't want that to happen."

"You brought the books with you when you came?"

Belle had to laugh at what she now recognized as his careful nonchalance. "A few of them. The rest I traded for. There's a village a few days' walk from here, and twice a year there's a fair where merchants hawk their wares. They know I'll always pay handsomely for a new story."

"Who milks the goat?"

"I bring the goat with me," Belle said.

"And the chickens?"

"Can take care of themselves for a few days. Bad enough to risk the goat."

"Ahh," he said. "That does tarnish your mystique. The only question left is whether you really are a runaway princess."

"Nothing so exciting, I fear." She watched as he rose and brushed the crumbs from his fingers. "Where are you going?"

"Out," he said.

"If you're going to visit your goat friend, make sure you latch the shed door behind you when you leave," she said, as she always did. "There are—"

"—things around here that eat chickens," he finished for her, and fastened his cloak. "So I've heard."

She finished the last of the bread herself, with only a little help from the cat, and then donned her own overcoat and went around to the back. Rumpelstiltskin was standing beneath the great oak at the edge of the clearing, looking at the sky; rather than disturb him she circled around the cottage to the cellar. The doors were covered with snow and probably frozen shut to boot, but Belle gritted her teeth, planted her feet, and pulled. With a bit of effort the door swung free, and she descended down the narrow steps, pausing only to light the candle that was kept in the small nook set at shoulder-height into the wall.

Her cellar was almost lavishly spacious. Towards the front were the surpluses of grains, dried meats, spices, and canned vegetables. The back held an assortment of spare parts and objects whose purpose had been lost to time. Belle collected six ears of corn in a sack, careful to brush her fingers across the preservative amulet that hung from one corner of the shelf before touching the corn, and then began to hunt through the clutter for a bag of cocoa powder. She had one down here, she knew it—

The spinning wheel was half-hidden behind a flour sack and a collection of rakes with broken handles. As soon as the light of her candle fell on it, she stopped; there was something familiar about it, although if she'd ever known of its existence she'd long forgotten about it. When she saw the spool she remembered Rumpelstiltskin's quick, sure hands as he showed her how to mend seams and hem her skirts. She wondered if he knew how to spin.

Even if he didn't, there was sure to be a book _somewhere_ in her collection that explained the craft. Now that would be a winter project. The wheel was ungainly, but not excessively heavy; if he'd disappeared on one of his walks in the woods, she could probably haul it upstairs and set it up before he returned.

She installed it beside the fireplace, and somehow wasn't surprised that he didn't once comment on the new piece of furniture; but neither did she miss the way he moved the wheel a quarter-turn every time he passed.

* * *

It snowed every day leading up to Christmas, until both of them knew Rumpelstiltskin was well and truly trapped, likely until the first thaw—although Rumpelstiltskin couldn't bring himself to raise the subject. He caught himself looking at the spinning wheel more often that he would have liked. The wheel was a beautiful old piece, made of oak, and needed only a little oil to put it in working order. More than once he found it on the tip of his tongue to ask Belle for oil and a brush, but like the prevailing weather, that was one more subject he dared not breach for fear of shattering their fragile, welcome peace.

The eve before Christmas she drafted him as an assistant cook, although within a matter of minutes he graduated to principle and was telling her how to chop the nuts instead of the other way around. "With the flat of the—no, dear, you aren't trying to grind them to powder. Gently." He wrapped his hand around hers and showed her how the rock the knife to and fro; her cheeks flushed a lovely pale pink when he touched her, although he knew that was more the heat of the fire, which had been built up to almost terrible proportions, than his proximity.

"Where do you go on your walks?" she asked, pausing to wipe a drop of sweat from her forehead. She'd shed the blouse she usually wore under this particular dress, and her arms were bare to the shoulder.

"Here and there," he said. "I like to walk. Helps me forget...pass me the salt, there's a dear. When did you say your merchant fair comes to town?"

"I didn't, but not until spring and again at harvest. Why do you ask?" She scooped the crushed walnuts into a wooden bowl and reached for the figs.

"No reason. Saw some tracks, and I thought—I'm a paranoid old fool, don't pay me any mind." When he saw that she knew how to treat the figs, he collected a bucket from its hook by the door and went outside to gather snow. The bucket he set on the hearth; they would have fresh water with their meal.

"What do I do with the ham?" Belle asked.

"Light the oven," he said. She pulled a face at him; he hadn't seen her use the wood oven in the corner once of her own will, although he'd managed to coerce her into it a time or two. "Good. Now, dearie, put the ham in the oven."

"You're impossible," she said, and started to unwrap the sacking from the ham hock. It was perfectly fresh, despite being months old; whoever had done Belle's preservation charms knew their business. Not many hedge-witches could pull off such a fine trick.

After the bread pudding had been cooked and left on the stove to keep warm and the greens had been strained and the ham left in the oven to bake, they retired to the fireside with spiced cider to talk. The wind howled outside, blowing against the roof and rattling the windows in their frames, but inside Belle's cottage was warm and bright, filled with the smell of good food and with friendship in equal measure. (That level of sentiment might have been induced by the cider.)

Belle caught him turning the spinning wheel, but, oddly, he wasn't ashamed to be caught; the pleasure on her face was so vivid it amazed him.

"You know how to spin, don't you?" she said.

"I do," he said.

"Show me?"

Rumpelstiltskin sighed. "Why not, dearie," he murmured. "All right. I'll need some fiber."

"I have wool," she offered, and then set about banging through the cabinets almost loud enough to drown out the wind outside until she managed to produce a bundle of the stuff. He was slow at first, his fingers clumsy as they tried to remember how to draft the fiber and string the drive wheels and time the treadle. Soon enough, though, the art came back to him, and he had a spool of thread to show to Belle.

"It's beautiful," she said, surprised. "I wouldn't have thought you could make gold thread from white wool, but it's so...it _glimmers_."

"That's a special trick of mine," he said, using a paring knife to cut a length of the thread loose. He was about to present it to her when the wind screamed; there was a crack, the sound of the latch being torn free of the wood, and then all the lights in the room went out.

Something screamed again, high and fierce. "That wasn't the wind," Belle said.

"No, dearie, it wasn't," he said. "Should we..."

"I think we have to," she said, grim but determined. He could make out only a shadowy shape that he thought was Belle; the moon was full, but the back of the cottage was still pitch black. He saw her grope for the table, and then he heard the sound of a drawer opening and shutting. They helped each other into warmer clothing, then, and Belle girded something through her belt—the dagger she kept hidden in the drawer.

"Together?" he said.

"Together," Belle answered, and they stepped outside.

The beast was waiting.

* * *

Its pelt was white, and its scales, but its eyes were yellow. Pinned to the ground beneath its three-inch claws was one of Belle's hens. She reacted without thinking, throwing herself forward and shouting until the beast reared back and her chicken flapped away. The beast drew back its lips and snarled at her, and the snarl was more terrible than the wind, more terrible than an ogre's roar, more terrible than the sound her father had made as he died. That snarl and the sight of its fangs froze her—

And then Rumpelstiltskin yanked her back, so hard he wrenched her shoulder in the socket, just as the beast lunged at her. She felt the rank heat of its breath on her face before he jerked her away and threw the thread in his left hand over the beast's head. The creature screamed again—

—and fell back—

"What did you _do_," she shouted.

"Not the time! Belle—Belle, look at me!" He shook her, forcing her to tear her eyes away from the sight of the beast writhing as it tore at the thread. "Stay _here_, do you understand?"

"I..."

"Belle!" He shook her again. "Do you understand?"

"I hear," she said. "I don't—duck!" She shoved him and flung herself at the ground; the beast's claws tore through her roses and left inch-deep tracks in the side of her house. Time was moving strangely; she remembered watching her hands shake, she remembered watching Rumpelstiltskin step forward, she remembered watching Rumpelstiltskin throw the beast backwards without touching it—

She remembered the acrid smell of magic.

The beast twisted away, folding up and over itself, and Rumpelstiltskin slammed it again with that invisible force, and then once more, and then he strode forward and caught the golden thread that was still, impossibly, tangled around the beast's head. The beast screeched in rage and blind pain; Rumpelstiltskin dragged its head back, stepping neatly away from the snapping jaws, but he missed that the beast had worked a foreleg free from underneath the pinned weight of its body, and as those claws soared towards Rumpelstiltskin's head she had one, perfect moment of clarity.

In that moment, she drew the dagger from her belt, stepped under the swing of the beast's leg, and stabbed it in the eye.

What happened next was too twisted a sequence to unravel; the beast screamed the scream that made her want to cry for her mother, and Rumpelstiltskin caught her in his arms and buried his face against her shoulder. When the hammering of her heart died away, Belle became aware that the clearing was empty—of monsters, at least—and that they were clinging to each other with equal desperation.

And then she heard a baying that set a liquid fire in her throat—

And the thunder of hooves—

And a chase of riders burst into the clearing.

There were too many to count, between the hounds and the horses and the riders; the hounds were black, and each one was almost as large as the beast had been. The horses were blood bay and gray and black also, and the men and women mounted on them were not of this world. At the front of the party rode a man with the largest horse yet; his head was horned; his eyes were wild.

"Who are you?" Belle said.

"I have many names, lady," the hunter said. The hounds yelped and snapped at her when she took a step forward, letting her hand drop from Rumpelstiltskin's, but at a word from the hunter they settled.

"The beast is wounded," Rumpelstiltskin said. She glanced over her shoulder at him, but he was looking away, at the path the creature had torn through the forest. "You ride at its heels, huntsman."

"So I do, spinner; but soon I will ride with its head," the hunter said. "Lady, I would trouble you for a drink."

She was reluctant, for no reason she could name, to leave Rumpelstiltskin with the hunter and his otherwordly hounds, but she had yet to refuse succor to a traveller in need. "There's water in the house," she said, and then added, "Don't hurt him. Please."

"I wouldn't do my hostess the discourtesy," the hunter said. When he smiled, she saw his teeth; they were needle-fine.

The bucket of snow Rumpelstiltskin had hauled inside had long since melted into water. Belle almost knocked it over in her haste and then, because she could find no other vessel in the dark, overturned the bowl of chopped walnuts and filled that with water instead. It took all of her willpower to measure her steps and not spill the water. The hunter was talking to Rumpelstiltskin, but so lowly she couldn't hear them over the shifting of the horses and murmurs of the host.

The conversation cut off abruptly when she stepped outside. She crossed to the hunter and held the bowl up to him; he took it from her, drained it, and passed it back.

"Keep the candle in your window lit tonight, and for twelve nights' hence," the hunter said. "Lady, I thank you." At some wordless signal, the hounds stood to attention; the hunter let out a cry and then they bellowed and resumed the chase. Some of the horses' hooves struck the ground hard enough to make Belle's teeth ring. Some never seemed to touch the ground at all.

"Love," Rumpelstiltskin said, and touched her arm. "You're crying."

"I'm frightened," she said.

"Only a fool wouldn't be." He touched her arm again, and when she didn't flinch drew her against him. "Come inside. We'll light the candle."

"It's too cold to leave now," she said nonsensically. "You'll have to stay until spring."

"Somehow," he said, "I think I'll manage," and then he lead her into the cottage.

* * *

When the door had been repaired and the interior set to rights and the oven relit, they settled in front of the fire with goblets of water. The last of the cider had been lost to the floor and one very smug cat.

"You owe me a story," Belle said. "I haven't asked, but after tonight..."

"Yes. Well." Rumpelstiltskin looked down at his hands. "That's true enough, dear. I...am not a good man." She made to protest, but he cut her off before she'd spoken the words. "I was a soldier—of a sort. They took me when I was young, because I could make things happen, and when I was half-trained and more than half-wild they put me on the battlefield. I...got tired of it. I ran away." He set his goblet on the floor and pressed a hand over his eyes.

"There was a boy," he said. "An orphan, parents lost at sea. I raised him, but the...the queen of that land valued soldiers of the sort I had been, and she hunted me down after years. She said she would trade the boy's life for my service, and when I agreed, she put a geis on me that bound me to her for nine years and nine days. The boy didn't..." His breath hitched.

"How long did you have with your son?" Belle asked, as gently as she knew how.

"Ten years, nearly eleven. We...I found a village where nobody knew us and worked as a spinner. My mother was a spinner, she's the one who taught me to twist spells into—Bae never had the knack for it, poor lad. Sometimes he..." His shoulders hitched again, but his face was still hidden.

Belle went to him and knelt down, careful to pull her skirts away from the hearth before she tucked her fingers over his and pulled his hands away from his face. His eyes were wet.

"You ran from the queen?" she said.

He let out a heaving, humorless laugh. "The moment my nine years were over, I ran," he said. "Right until the night you found me on your doorstep."

"Good. I'm glad you ran," Belle said. "I'm glad you left her."

"Are you?"

"I am. I've been lonely here. I didn't know I was lonely until you came, but I was. There was a war for me, too," she said. "It went badly."

"Wars do." He squeezed her fingers. "So I'm to stay until spring?"

"You are," she said.

"And after that?"

"Until winter."

"And after that?"

"Until spring again."

"And am I to milk the goat?"

"Only if you insult my soup again," Belle promised.


End file.
